You cannot see a great deal of the actual race from the top of the County Stand at Aintree, but the overall sweep of the spectacle as the Grand National unfolds below is among the most magnificent in all of sport. For 10 minutes, it feels like a chance to watch life with the colour and volume controls turned up to maximum – and, if there are injuries or deaths to horses or riders, the contrast, too.

And never more so than on Saturday, when the most exciting conclusion to the race since Red Rum overhauled Crisp in the final strides in 1973 was followed by the news that two horses had suffered fatal injuries. Just when it needed a renewal with no horses killed, like five of the previous dozen, it felt grimly typical of the National that it had not only claimed two more, as in 2011, but that one of those was Synchronised, the Gold Cup winner.

This was a natural human reaction to what was a miserable postscript to the race, as was the immediate rush to apportion blame. David Muir, the RSPCA's equine consultant, immediately pointed to the fact that Becher's Brook, where Synchronised fell before being injured while running loose and According To Pete, the other fatality, was brought down, is a "drop" fence. That means that, like Valentine's Brook, it is lower on the landing side than for take-off.

Gavin Grant, the society's chief executive, added the field size to the list of items for scrutiny in an interview on Sunday morning, saying that the race is "clearly not safe enough", and that "40 horses is a heck of a lot". The pressure for changes to the fences or race conditions, or perhaps even both, before next year will be considerable.

Whether Aintree, or racing as a whole, should give in to that pressure is another matter. It would be easy to do so, particularly on the issue of field size. Thirty-five or even 30 runners would not look that different. Rough Quest beat just 26 horses in 1996, and did anyone notice the difference?

For me, though, the problem with making significant changes to the National as a result of the race on Saturday is not so much what is done, but why. We tend to think of the Grand National almost as an entity in itself, but in essence it is just a supremely complicated exercise in risk and chance, which is what makes it so popular as a gambling medium.

There have been two deaths in the National in consecutive years, but that does not constitute a pattern. Had no horses been killed on Saturday, no one, least of all the RSPCA, would have claimed that the tweaks to the course since 2011 had made it completely safe. Even with no drop fences and 25 runners, there would still be a National at some point that claimed the life of a horse, and where do the fingers point then? The trip, perhaps, or the size of the ditches. Whatever it is, the ultimate result will be a race just like any other over jumps.

No one disputes that the risk of injury is elevated in the National. Overall in Britain last year, 181 horses were killed on tracks from a total of 94,776, a rate of 0.19pc. Even allowing for the likelihood that the last two years are a deviation from what might be expected, there have been 11 deaths in the National from just over 500 runners since 2000, which is just over 2%.

The question is not just whether the higher risk in the National can be justified, but whether that elevated risk is such an essential thread in the weave of the race that it cannot be removed without damaging it beyond repair. My guess would be that the National is now as safe as it is ever likely to be while retaining its uniqueness, and that it is worth remembering how strong an appeal this still exerts.

Because one lesson from this year's National seems to be that, while the race has fierce critics, last year's events did not diminish its attraction to the British public. The BBC's viewing figures jumped sharply, from around 8 million to a peak of 10 million, while the 70,000 tickets to see the race live – and as noted above, "see" is a very relative concept at Aintree – sold out even more rapidly than in 2011. Betting turnover, too, was as strong as ever.

Paul Nicholls, the trainer of the winner Neptune Collonges, said on Sunday that while "there are risks and we all try to minimise them – a lot of people need to grow up, and realise that it is life".

It was a fairly abrupt way to put it, but the viewing, attendance and betting figures for this year's race suggest that a lot of people already have. Whether that possibility will be factored into the process of deciding whether, or how, the National needs to change before next year remains to be seen.